Vikings hire self-described “scumbag” to talk to their rookies

The Minnesota Vikings have hired a colorful character to talk to their rookies about the importance of staying out of the wrong places at the wrong times.

That character is Sean Bishop, a convicted felon who works in the strip club business and was brought to Minnesota to tell the Vikings’ rookies that if they’re smart, they’ll stay away from characters like him and establishments like his, because strip clubs are a great place to blow your money and find yourself in legal trouble.

So where did the Vikings find this scumbag? It turns out that Vikings executive director of player development Les Pico was Bishop’s football coach at Washburn University in the 1990s. And Pico thought Bishop’s life story would provide something of a “scared straight” vibe if he spoke to the team.

“He’s not a choirboy by any means,” Pico said of Bishop. “I can’t legislate morality. Sean’s a guy who isn’t afraid to talk negatively about the business he’s in. Our owners give us great latitude allowing us to run these programs and put a convicted felon on a plane to come here and talk to our rookies about why they shouldn’t be in strip clubs.”

Bishop says NFL players are often treated like royalty at strip clubs because they have plenty of cash to throw around, but eventually things go wrong.

“These guys get comfortable in the VIP section and think they’re not being seen and forget where they’re at,” he said. “Being a competitive athlete, it’s hard for them to turn the other cheek or swallow their pride and walk away from bad situations. Instead, they make a scene and forget where they’re at because the owner’s treating them like a king, they’re young and think they’re invincible when all it takes is one snapshot and you’re done.”

So the moral of the story is, don’t go to strip clubs. Spoken from a man in the strip club business.

The smarter approach is to remind players that b/c they are young, inexperienced and have recently gained a pile of cash that they have a BULLSEYE on their back from women especially strippers, the media, con men, agents and many others, who all want to get a piece of their pie. Any COACH or TEAMMATE could tell them that. No need to introduce them to a ”scumbag.”

Is it just me, or is this self-righteous “scared straight” stuff starting to sound like moralizing hypocritical bs? Who’s going to be in there next to lecture players? Jim Bakker? Jimmy Swaggert? Pat Robertson?

I don’t care about the morality of going to/ not going to strip clubs whatsoever, I just think it’s SMART for ANY high profile person to get to know someone first before they have any type of personal relationship with them especially one involving a) nudity b) your wallet c) both. The days of groupies just being happy they slept with you are gone, men. Now they are armed with paternity tests and lawyers with dollar signs. BE SMART!

Honestly, who they need to learn from is Roethlisberger. He showed bad judgement in the groupies he selected to pay attention to and the type of attention he showed them and he almost ruined his career.

This is one of many things about being famous that sucks. You can’t have a “real life”…so it’s part of what I take into account before complaining about these guys’ paychecks. Would I want that money in exchange for no privacy AT ALL? Nope.

Sorry, but I thought this was well played by the Vikes. It’s irregular and outside the box, but even if you’re not in stardom the lesson is ligit
That kind of money and your young, you bet places like this are going to ruin you. I think this was as real as it gets. These boys don’t need some expert motivational speaker that gives a 20 minute speech on money, morals and ethics, they need someone to say, ” I’m gonna jack you and feed on your illusionary success.” Love it.

As it turns out Les Pico frequents John Bishop’s establishments and somehow has gotten himself into a not so good situation. I’m guessing part of the agreement so John doesn’t let Mrs. Pico know what Les has been up to is to be able to come in and drum up more business with the young, dumb and new to money crowd. 😉

In over 50 years of attempting to teach the vikings to become football players they have not won the George Halas trophy let alone a Lombardi trophy. Instead they have become the scumbags of the NFL with the most arrests.

Perhaps by teaching them to BE Scumbags they can fail at that and instead become good football players.

Never underestimate the ability of the vikings to screw up. Just look at the dome collapses, not making draft picks on time, letting a player die in training camp, scandalous lake cruises, high speed DUI chases with police, etc.

i believe that Minnesota is one of the very, very few cities that actually arrests its athletes for breaking the law. that’s why they have the highest arrest “rate.”

you dang well know that athletes are given preferential treatment in other cities. yes, even in green bay. go to wisconsin and ask around if bar hoppers ever encountered the packers during the 90’s. they were notorious for starting fights and causing damage. cops would come, and find out it was packers causing the trouble, and ask for autographs.

and i see many “boat” comments on here. good god. you are all stupid if you think the vikings are the only team to ever host an orgy with atlanta call girls and strippers. they just got caught. the only reason the vikings boat scandal was in the media is because the boat company was not used to having those kinds of “parties.” go to the big cities and these parties are standard protocol. they don’t snitch to the media because the company wants the athletes money to keep coming in.